Composition and therapeutic utility of conotoxins from genus Conus. Patent status 1996 - 2000

Abstract

With an exponentially increasing body of scientific evidence pointing toward the potential of conotoxins for treatment of a wide variety of nervous system and associated neurological disorders, there has been an explosion of activity in this patent area with more than eighty new patents and PCT publications in the past five years. With the emergence of ziconotide (SNX-111, ω-conotoxin MVIIA) as the first clinically used conotoxin for treatment of a neurological disorder, the first part of the new millennium is likely to see many more new filings in this field. The majority of the applications from this period focus on those classes of conopeptides that interact with nicotinic acetylcholine receptors (nAChRs) together with those that block voltage-gated ion channels. This arena has to date been dominated by three research groups: Neurex (a wholly-owned subsidiary of Elan, South San Francisco, CA, USA), Xenome and the Institute for Molecular Bioscience (IMB), University of Queensland (Melbourne, Australia) and Cognetix (Salt Lake City, UT, USA) together with the University of Utah Research Foundation and the Salk Institute for Biological Studies (La Jolla, CA, USA).